A project to build a giant island providing enough energy for three million households has been given the green light by Denmark’s politicians.
The world’s first energy island will be as big as 18 football pitches (120,000sq m), but there are hopes to make it three times that size.
It will serve as a hub for 200 giant offshore wind turbines.
It is the biggest construction project in Danish history, costing an estimated 210bn kroner (£24bn; €28bn: $34bn).
Situated 80km (50 miles) out to sea, the artificial island would be at least half-owned by the state but partly by the private sector.
It will not just supply electricity for Danes but for other, neighbouring countries’ electricity grids too. Although those countries have not yet been detailed, Prof Jacob Ostergaard of the Technical University of Denmark told the BBC that the UK could benefit, as well as Germany or the Netherlands. Green hydrogen would also be provided for use in shipping, aviation, industry and heavy transport.
Under Denmark’s Climate Act, the country has committed to an ambitious 70% reduction in 1990 greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and to becoming CO2 neutral by 2050. Last December it announced it was ending all new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.
Energy Minister Dan Jorgensen said the country was simply “changing the map”.
“This is gigantic,” Prof Ostergaard told the BBC. “It’s the next big step for the Danish wind turbine industry. We were leading on land, then we took the step offshore and now we are taking the step with energy islands, so it’ll keep the Danish industry in a pioneering position.”
The plan is for the island to grow from an initial 120,000 sq m in size to 460,000 sq m Source: DANISH ENERGY AGENCY
Green group Dansk Energi said that while the “dream was on the way to becoming a reality” it doubted the North Sea island would be up and running by the planned 2033 start date.
But Danish politicians across the spectrum have given their backing to the plan. Former energy minister Rasmus Helveg Petersen of the Social Liberal party said energy islands had begun “as a radical vision” but there was now a broad agreement to turn it into a reality.
A smaller energy island is already being planned off Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, to the east of mainland Denmark. Agreements have already been signed for electricity to be provided from there to Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Last November the European Union announced plans for a 25-fold increase in offshore wind capacity by 2050, with a five-fold increase by 2030. Renewable energy provides around a third of the bloc’s current electricity needs:
According to the EU, offshore wind supplies a current level of 12 gigawatts
Denmark supplies 1.7 gigawatts
The new island would supply an initial 3 gigawatts, rising to 10 over time
The smaller Bornholm energy island would provide 2 gigawatts
While there is some secrecy over where the new island will be built, it is known that it will be 80km into the North Sea. Danish TV said that a Danish Energy Agency study last year had marked two areas west of the Jutland coast and that both had a relatively shallow sea depth of 26-27m.
A coalition of more than 50 countries has committed to protect almost a third of the planet by 2030 to halt the destruction of the natural world and slow extinctions of wildlife.
The High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People, which includes the UK and countries from six continents, made the pledge to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans before the One Planet summit in Paris on Monday, hosted by the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
Scientists have said human activities are driving the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth, and agricultural production, mining and pollution are threatening the healthy functioning of life-sustaining ecosystems crucial to human civilisation.
In the announcement, the HAC said protecting at least 30% of the planet for nature by the end of the decade was crucial to preventing mass extinctions of plants and animals, and ensuring the natural production of clean air and water.
The commitment is likely to be the headline target of the “Paris agreement for nature” that will be negotiated at Cop15 in Kunming, China later this year. The HAC said it hoped early commitments from countries such as Colombia, Costa Rica, Nigeria, Pakistan, Japan and Canada would ensure it formed the basis of the UN agreement.
Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, welcomed the pledge but cautioned: “It is one thing to commit, but quite different to deliver. But when we have committed, we must deliver. And with concerted efforts, we can collectively deliver.”
The announcement at the One Planet summit, which also saw pledges to invest billions of pounds in the Great Green Wall in Africa and the launch of a new sustainable finance charter called the Terra Carta by Prince Charles, was met with scepticism from some campaigners. Greta Thunberg tweeted: “LIVE from #OnePlanetSummit in Paris: Bla bla nature Bla bla important Bla bla ambitious Bla bla green investments…”
As part of the HAC announcement, the UK environment minister Zac Goldsmith said: “We know there is no pathway to tackling climate change that does not involve a massive increase in our efforts to protect and restore nature. So as co-host of the next Climate Cop,the UK is absolutely committed to leading the global fight against biodiversity loss and we are proud to act as co-chair of the High Ambition Coalition.
“We have an enormous opportunity at this year’s biodiversity conference in China to forge an agreement to protect at least 30% of the world’s land and ocean by 2030. I am hopeful our joint ambition will curb the global decline of the natural environment, so vital to the survival of our planet.”
However, despite support for the target from several countries, many indigenous activists have said that increasing protected areas for nature could result in land grabs and human rights violations. The announcement may also concern some developing countries who are keen for ambitious commitments on finance and sustainable development as part of the Kunming agreement, not just conservation.
Unlike its climate equivalent, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity covers three issues: the sustainable use of nature, sharing benefits from genetic resources, and conservation. The three pillars of the treaty can clash with each other and richer, developed countries have been accused of focusing too much on conservation while ignoring difficult choices on agriculture and providing finance for poorer nations to meet targets.
The HAC, currently co-chaired by France, Costa Rica and the UK, was formed in 2019 following the success of a similar climate body that spurred ambitious international action before the Paris agreement. By promoting action on biodiversity loss, it is hoped early commitments from the HAC will ensure a successful agreement for nature.
Over the last decade, the world has failed to meet a single target to stem the destruction of wildlife and life-sustaining ecosystems.
On Monday, leaders from around the world met in person and virtually at the One Planet summit in Paris to discuss the biodiversity crisis, promoting agroecology and the relationship between human health and nature. Boris Johnson, Angela Merkel and Justin Trudeau addressed the event, which also included statements fromUN secretary general, António Guterres, and the Chinese vice-premier Han Zheng .
The UK government has also committed £3bn of UK international climate finance to supporting nature and biodiversity over the next five years.
Johnson told the event: “We are destroying species and habitat at an absolutely unconscionable rate. Of all the mammals in the world, I think I am right in saying that 96% of mammals are now human being or livestock that human beings rely upon.
“That is, in my view, a disaster. That’s why the UK has pledged to protect 30% of our land surface and marine surface. Of the 11.6bn that we’ve consecrated to climate finance initiatives, we are putting £3bn to protecting nature.”
The funding was welcomed by conservation and environmental organisations, including the RSPB and Greenpeace, but there were questions about the scale of the funding and whether it came at the cost of international aid.
“Increasing funds to protect and enhance nature is critical to help secure success at the global biodiversity conference in China this year. Siphoning off cash from funds already committed to tackling the climate crisis simply isn’t enough,” said Greenpeace UK’s head of politics, Rebecca Newsom.
“This announcement raises concerns that the UK’s shrinking aid budget is being repurposed to pay for nature and biodiversity. As important as these are, the first priority of overseas aid should be the alleviation of poverty,” said Oxfam’s senior policy adviser on Climate Change, Tracy Carty.
This article was amended on 12 January 2020 to better reflect that the High Ambition Coalition (formed 2011) and the High Ambition Coalition for People and Nature (formed 2019) are separate organisations
The end of 2020 marked the moment, under the Paris Agreement’s “ratchet mechanism”, when nations were supposed to formally submit more ambitious commitments for cutting their emissions.
However, just 45 “parties” (44 countries, plus the EU’s 27 member states viewed as one bloc) met this deadline.
After a year disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, nations representing only around 28 per cent of global emissions registered new or updated “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) on the UN’s official registry by the end of the year.
Some big emitters did register their NDCs in time, including the UK and EU. But major absences included the US, India and China.
Informal consultations at COP25 Madrid. Credit: Kiara Worth | IISD/ENB.
Even among the new submissions, many showed no increase in ambition since the first pledges made five years ago, or even backtracked with scaled-back proposals.
Here, Carbon Brief analyses the various new pledges and how they add up. However, one expert tells Carbon Brief that, while there was reason for hope among the new NDCs, the collective plans are still “totally off” what is required to achieve the Paris Agreement’s global warming targets.
Why were new climate pledges expected in 2020?
Every party that signed up to the Paris Agreement has to commit to a target for cutting its share of global emissions, known as its NDC, every five years.
In the run up to the COP21 climate summit in Paris, most nations had submitted intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs), which automatically became their first NDCs unless parties chose to submit updated versions.
A few countries like North Korea and Panama chose to hold off and submit their NDCs after ratifying the Paris Agreement.
According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 190 parties, including the 27 EU member states, have now submitted first NDCs. A handful, including Iran, Iraq and Turkey have yet to do so.
Most of the pledges to reduce emissions within the NDCs were communicated as percentage reductions from a fixed baseline by a fixed year, although some, notably China and India, based theirs on cuts in “emissions intensity of GDP”. To add to the confusion, nations picked different starting points and target years.
Crucially, the initial round of INDCs was not enough to meet the climate targets set out in Paris, a point acknowledged at the time by world leaders.
Estimates suggest they would set the planet on a course for around 3C of warming, rather than the 2C or stretch target of 1.5C that nations had agreed in Paris in 2015.
Now, five years after the Paris Agreement was adopted, countries are obliged to renew and upgrade their NDCs. This is the first test of the “ratchet mechanism” embedded in the agreement, which seeks to scale up the ambition of pledges over time.
The chart below shows the progress some of the world’s major economies have made in cutting emissions from a baseline of 1990 – which is used by the EU and UK.
The coloured dotted lines indicate a linear trajectory of necessary further cuts to meet their NDC targets for 2030. China and India’s GDP-based NDCs are not shown, but the light grey line indicates the progress China, the UK and the EU must make towards their net-zero targets.
Change in greenhouse gas emissions, per cent, from 1990 for a selection of key economies, with rough pathways to NDC (coloured dotted lines) and net-zero (light grey dotted lines) targets based on a simplified and indicative linear trajectory, not actual projections of future emissions pathways. Historical emissions data includes all greenhouse gases and land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF), but only goes as far as 2017, which impacts the trajectory of NDC and net-zero targets. Unlike other parties, the US has not submitted a 2030 NDC yet so its pathway only goes to 2025. China and India do not have NDCs expressed as emissions percentage reductions, so their NDC pathways are not included. The EU’s net-zero trajectory is difficult to see as it follows a similar trajectory to its NDC pathway. Source: Climate Watch. Charts made by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.
This chart, meanwhile, shows the progress some of the world’s major economies have made in cutting emissions from a baseline of 2005, which is used by the US.
Change in greenhouse gas emissions, per cent, from 2005 for a selection of key economies, with rough pathways to NDC (coloured dotted lines) and net-zero (light grey dotted lines) targets based on a simplified and indicative linear trajectory, not actual projections of future emissions pathways. Historical emissions data includes all greenhouse gases and land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF), but only goes as far as 2017, which impacts the trajectory of NDC and net-zero targets. Unlike other parties, the US has not submitted a 2030 NDC yet so its pathway only goes to 2025. China and India do not have NDCs expressed as emissions percentage reductions, so their NDC pathways are not included. The EU’s net-zero trajectory is difficult to see as it follows a similar trajectory to its NDC pathway. Source: Climate Watch. Charts made by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.
In line with the Paris Agreement, nations that only set an initial NDC covering the period up to 2025, such as the US, must now produce one that goes to 2030, and those that already contained a 2030 target must “communicate or update” their NDCs.
The agreement also states “the efforts of all parties will represent a progression over time” and will reflect the “highest possible ambition”.
However, as the text does not explicitly require new pledges to be submitted if they already run to 2030, there is room to interpret it as meaning that previous NDCs can be re-communicated. Adopting clearer language on the need for ambition was a contentious topic at COP25 in 2019.
“There is a legal dispute on what is allowed and what is not allowed, Prof Niklas Höhne from Climate Action Tracker (CAT) tells Carbon Brief, adding that nevertheless he sees it clearly:
I would argue that in the last five years, for example, renewables have become much, much cheaper than they were projected five years ago, so the situation is completely different and every country can go back and check whether they can do a little bit more.
Niklas Höhne, founder, Climate Action Tracker
Parties were initially asked in the decision text following the Paris Agreement to inform the UN of their new NDCs nine to twelve months before the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow so that the UNFCCC secretariat could prepare a synthesis report based on their contents.
Just three nations representing around 0.1 per cent of the world’s emissions met this deadline.
This “symbolic” date was ultimately delayed after the Covid-19 pandemic led to the COP’s postponement.
Instead, the UNFCCC announced it would publish an initial version of the NDC report by 28 February 2021, based on the NDCs in its registry as of 31 December 2020. The report will then be updated with any new information closer to COP26.
While some nations expressed concerns about their capacity to assemble new NDCs by the end of the year, a letter written in August 2020 by UNFCCC executive secretary Patricia Espinosa made it clear that the end-of-year deadline was still considered important.
“I strongly encourage Parties to submit their updated or new NDCs in accordance with this timeline,” she wrote.
Which nations have announced new targets?
The table below shows the nations that heeded Espinosa’s advice and made their new announcements by 31 December 2020.
The EU, Russia, Brazil, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Argentina, Mexico, Zambia and the UK are the only economies each contributing around 1 per cent or more of global emissions that have announced new targets.
However, as analysis by CAT indicates, some nations that met the deadline merely restated past commitments or made new ones that did not substantially increase ambition. (See section below.)
Many of the first countries to come forward with updated NDCs were small island states and other nations that are highly exposed to climate impacts, but contribute very little to global emissions. The Marshall Islands, for example, submitted its new NDC almost two years earlier than most other parties.
Also included in the table are nations that have indicated an intention to “enhance ambition or action in new or updated NDCs”, as recorded by the WRI’s Climate Watch resource.
This group contains an additional 82 nations, accounting for around 33per cent of total emissions.
Many of these commitments came from an announcement made at COP25 by 103 countries to “enhance ambition of their NDCs by 2020”.
China, the world’s largest emitter, remains the biggest omission from the table, although its leader Xi Jinping announced at a UN climate ambition summit in December that his nation would aim for carbon neutrality by 2060 and scale up its 2030 NDC in line with this. However, China has yet to formally register its new NDC with the UN.
China’s proposed NDC changes include a cut to the CO2 intensity of its GDP by more than 65per cent from 2005 levels, compared to its earlier target of 60-65per cent. While this marks an increase in ambition, it suggests that – in the short term and depending on assumptions about GDP growth – China’s emissions cuts will be modest. (See Carbon Brief’s analysis of China’s new 2030 pledge.)
Meanwhile, the US does not appear in the table above, although president-elect Joe Biden is expected to set out plans for a new NDC after he has taken office later this month and the US re-joins the Paris Agreement.
Other major emitters that have not come forward with new plans include India, Indonesia, Iran, Canada, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Collectively, these six nations contribute around 17per cent of global emissions.
Do the new pledges reflect an increase in ambition?
Submission of a new NDC does not automatically mean a more ambitious commitment and commentators have pointed out that several of the plans released by large countries fall short of what is required.
At the “climate ambition summit” hosted online last month by the UN, UK and France to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, 45 nations came forward with enhanced NDCs.
According to Taryn Fransen, an international climate change policy expert at WRI, there has been a “mixed bag” so far, with the EU and UK in particular taking a “significant step up”.
She notes that a number of Latin American countries have also raised their ambition, including Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru.
Prof Niklas Höhne from CAT tells Carbon Brief that, while the situation is “much better” than he would have imagined six months ago, “it is still not sufficient”.
We have several countries that have submitted the same thing or even [gone] backwards, so there’s still a lot to do this year…What’s very clear is that we are not a little bit off we are totally off when you add all the different pledges of countries.
Niklas Höhne,founder, Climate Action Tracker
NDCs from major economies have been analysed by CAT to assess whether or not they represent an increase in ambition from previous commitments.
Lower ambition: Brazil and Mexico
Brazil has been the subject of extensive criticism for producing a new NDC that not only fails to raise ambition, but uses an accounting “trick” to make its initial pledge less ambitious.
The nation says it will cut emissions by 43per cent over the next decade compared to 2005 levels, the same as its previous proposal.
However, methodological changes in the emissions inventory since the first pledge was made mean this is now a considerably higher starting point.
The Climate Observatory, a Brazilian NGO, estimates this would mean an additional 400m tonnes of CO2e (MtCO2e) being released in 2030 compared to the original 2015 plan.
As of 2017, Brazil’s total annual emissions were around 1.4bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2).
The nation has also mentioned a potential 2060 net-zero goal, but said this is conditional on the payment to Brazil of $10bn per year in climate finance by other countries.
In a critique of the government’s plans, WWF says this request comes “despite [Brazil] being one of the 10 largest economies in the world”.
As a result, CAT has downgraded Brazil’s NDC from “insufficient” for meeting Paris goals to “highly insufficient”. President Jair Bolsonaro was also excluded from the recent climate ambition summit due to his nation’s insufficient plans.
Fransen says Mexico has similarly submitted a new pledge, based on a business-as-usual baseline, that is weaker than its original NDC.
“In the updated NDC they have revised those [baseline] projections upwards which of course means their achieving their target will result in higher 2030 emissions than it would have before,” she says.
The NDC has also got rid of a reference to emissions peaking in 2026.
Lacking ambition: Russia and Vietnam
Russia states in its new NDC that it “demonstrates an increasing ambition compared to earlier commitments to limit greenhouse gas emissions”.
Its previous submission from 2019 contained a commitment to cut emissions by between 25-30per cent of 1990 levels by 2030.
The new one pledges to cut emissions by 30per cent. (Russia was one of the last nations to submit a first NDC, having only ratified the Paris Agreement in October 2019.)
But the ambition of this NDC is debatable given Russia’s emissions have already fallen by more than 30per cent since 1990.
Following the end of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the restructuring of the economy, the nation’s emissions dropped dramatically. But, in recent years, its emissions have been growing.
“[Russia] is basically proposing a target that would be met anyway,” says Höhne. He adds that Vietnam is also using a similar strategy.
According to CAT, Vietnam is set to “vastly overachieve its updated NDC”, as the business-as-usual emissions trajectory it is based on has been “hyper-inflated”, meaning no new policies will be required to achieve it.
Same ambition: Australia, Japan and others
Australia has faced criticism for submitting a “new” NDC without a substantial change to the old one. Therefore, it has been deemed “insufficient” by CAT.
While the new NDC states that it represents a “floor on Australia’s ambition” and that the nation “is aiming to overachieve”, energy minister Angus Taylor has said there are no plans to make a more ambitious pledge in the near future.
Other nations that have similarly made no significant changes include Switzerland and Singapore.
Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, having re-submitted their original NDCs with unchanged targets, have all announced plans to reappraise their submissions in 2021 and come forward with stronger pledges.
For the two east Asian nations, this news comes after their governments revealed plans to aim for net-zero emissions by 2050, commitments that will require new shorter term targets as well.
“I think that is a good sign of the Paris Agreement working…governments feel pressured to say ‘OK we need to do more’,” says Höhne.
How much climate finance has been requested?
Every nation that has signed up to the Paris Agreement is expected to cut its emissions, but there is an expectation that poorer nations will be helped by aid – known as “climate finance” – from richer ones.
Financing climate action is, therefore, an important component of many NDCs.
Reflecting the varying levels of detail in the NDC documents, some parties have provided precise figures for their financial requirements, while others are more vague.
The table below shows explicit mentions of international climate finance requests included in the new round of NDCs, as well as plans for domestic funding. (Carbon Brief produced a similar table of requests for international funds in the first round of NDCs in 2015.)
In the latest round, a total of $373bn in international climate financing has so far been requested by developing nations. A large chunk of this is the $236bn quoted by Ethiopia.
However, as Carbon Brief stressed in its 2015 analysis of finance requests, there are important caveats to consider when looking at the total figure. For example, the types of requests can be very varied and often not directly comparable.
Some NDCs mentioned sums of money, but did not specify whether the funds they required would be sourced domestically or internationally.
Many countries that did not include specific numbers made it clear their targets depended on some level of financial support from other countries.
Nations agreed in 2009 that they would provide climate finance of $100bn a year by 2020, primarily through the UN-backed Green Climate Fund (GCF).
The GCF has often struggled to raise enough money from richer nations. The only country that makes a specific reference to providing money to the fund in the new NDCs is Monaco.
More detail on international financial requirements will likely be revealed as more NDCs emerge in the coming months.
Fransen tells Carbon Brief that a trend she has seen with the latest NDCs is that the sums being requested are “much more robust” than the previous round. “Countries have just had a lot more time to build their capacity,” she says.
This story was published with permission from Carbon Brief.
One year ago, Commission president Ursula von der Leyen presented the European Green Deal.
“This is Europe’s ‘man on the moon’ moment’” and the European growth strategy for the next decades, she said.
But transforming the European economy to meet the CO2 reduction targets and mitigate global warming will not be easy or cheap: it will require an additional investment of €350 billion annually, according to the Commission.
This massive effort cannot be carried out only with taxpayers money. For that reason, the Commission launched a sustainable finance initiative in 2018 to guide private investments towards the green recovery.
As the EU is in the process of increasing its ambition in CO2 emissions reduction to 55% by 2030, the Commission will present in early 2021 an “ambitious and comprehensive” renewed sustainable finance strategy, the Commissioner for Financial Services, Mairead McGuinness, announced in a speech in November.
The new strategy will build on the action plan launched two years ago and will explore new ways to include sustainability principles in finance and corporate sectors.
“We need a complete rethink. Sustainable finance needs to become mainstream to have a transformative impact on society and on the planet, while also generating strong returns,” McGuinness wrote in her first op-ed published by EURACTIV in November.
The priorities of the new strategy will be to strengthen the foundations for sustainable investment; to increase the opportunities for citizens and the private sector to support sustainability targets; and to integrate climate and environmental risks into the financial system.
The tools to progress on these three priorities will include the non-financial reporting directive to enhance sustainability disclosures by corporates, and the development of a voluntary EU Green Bond Standard, with a legislative proposal expected in the first half of next year.
The Commission is also implementing the EU taxonomy regulation, which helps to distinguish what investments are truly sustainable, and the climate benchmark regulation.
All these instruments will increase the transparency and the integrity of thegreen finance and will help to avoid the so-called “greenwashing” (investments that falsely claim to be sustainable).
The planned review of Solvency II rules, the EU regulation for the insurance sector, would also offer an opportunity to reward institutional investors’ support to the transition toward a more sustainable economy. One of the options could be demanding lower capital charges for sustainable investments.
Insurers, however, do not support these “non-risk-based reductions” in capital requirements as incentives to address climate change, according to Insurance Europe, an industry group.
‘Finance Watch’, a civil society association, instead proposed to penalise polluting activities by increasing capital charges for insurance companies’ investments in activities detrimental to a climate-neutral European economy.
In addition to the new sustainable finance agenda, the Commission is also reviewing other pieces of legislation that could spur green investment.
As part of the Stability and Growth Pact revision, the EU executive is considering including a “golden rule” that would favour public spending in sustainable projects under the deficit and debt thresholds.
The Commission also started a review of its state aid rules last year to see whether they are aligned with the ‘green’ priority, which could open the gates to public support for sustainable projects.
Some other attempts, however, have failed to gain enough traction, such as the possibility of lowering the capital banks must hold for loans given to sustainable projects.
European Banking Authority chairman, José Manuel Campa, said that “we’re not going to get to a green economy if in the process we end up encouraging banks to be insolvent, and get into another financial crisis.”
When Pete and Sophie Oswald set up their company in 2016, the Blenheim couple had a goal to help plant 100,000 trees. Four years later, they’ve managed to exceed that.
Professional skier Pete and Sophie founded the gift card company, Little Difference in 2016.
For every greeting card or other product sold, a tree is planted in Madagascar – contributing towards permanent reforestation, and creating jobs for locals in the process.
Pete said to reach 100,000 trees planted through Little Difference sales was a “crazy thing”.
“The goal of 100,000 trees planted was a goal set ages ago, years ago even, so that’s really exciting,” he said.
Sophie said they wanted to start a business that was not only low-impact on the environment, but also beneficial to the world we live in.
Sophie Oswald plants a mangrove, a species known for storing carbon dioxide. Source: Stuff
“When you borrow someone else’s stuff, we think you should try to return it better than you found it. Well, this goes for Earth too, and we are only borrowing it from our children,” she said.
Most of the trees planted were native mangrove species, which were known for their high carbon sequestration, which meant they stored carbon dioxide or other forms ofcarbon to either mitigate or defer global warming.
By August, he had already planted about 41,000 trees, having climbed 20,000 metres.
Donations had exceeded the amount of metres he had climbed, which was 30,668 metres.
Pete said with the ski season over, the final tree count for the fundraiser was 100,241 – which meant together with Little Difference, they had nearly planted 200,000 trees. This had created 1002 work days for locals.
Through sheer hard graft, Pete Oswald’s efforts helped to plant more than 100,000 trees. Source: Stuff
“It was amazing that people were willing to make donations and plant trees in a place that’s a world away, this couldn’t have been done without others help,” he said.
“So thank you massively to people that have supported it.”
The focus now was on Christmas, and selling as many gift cards as possible in order to plant more trees.
“It’s business as usual over there [Madagascar], they’re planting millions of trees each a month, and they’ve planted all our trees too.”
Pete said the pair had a new goal of one million trees.
The company is among the cohort of We Mean Business Coalition members who first committed to aligning with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C trajectory at COP25 in Madrid last winter. According to the IPCC, global net emissions must be halved by 2030 and reach zero by 2050 if we are to have the best chance of capping the global temperature increase.
CCEP’s new commitments cover emissions from Scope 1 (direct), Scope 2 (power-related) and Scope 3 (indirect) sources. The company’s main emissions sources aside from operations are ingredients, packaging, transportation and refrigeration.
Given that the majority of the firm’s Scope 3 emissions are in the supply chain, the company is aiming to help all of its strategic suppliers set science-based targets and transition to 100% renewable electricity. For ingredient and packaging-related emissions, the company will accelerate plans relating to sustainable agriculture and 100% recycled plastics. Some life-cycle analyses have found that soft drinks bottles made using 100% post-consumer-recycled plastic generate 40% less CO2e than virgin plastic bottles.
CCEP has earmarked €250m, to be spent over a three-year period, to develop its immediate action plan for meeting its new climate goals. Money will be used to support suppliers, improve efficiency and accelerate R&D around packaging materials.
The company is prioritising reductions over offsetting and has had its targets approved by the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). However, it will be investing in some verified carbon credits “where essential”, prioritising nature-based carbon removal.
CCEP said in a statement that it is ready to go further and faster after reducing value chain emissions by 30.5% since 2010. Its new targets are all baselined for 2019 and the company will develop new interim goals and projects in the coming years.
“We have a responsibility to the communities we serve to keep taking this action on climate,” CCEP’s chief executive Damian Gammell said.
“We know it will be a long and challenging journey – there are no quick fixes or silver bullets – but we are determined to drive this change as fast as we can and to play our part in helping and influencing others. We’ve made significant progress so far, and looking ahead, we will continue to help lead the transition to a low carbon future by putting environmental impact at the heart our decision-making.”
Net-zero movement
As of September, some 1,540 businesses globally had set net-zero targets of some kind, up from 500 in December 2019. That is according to research from Data-Driven EnviroLab and the NewClimate Institute.
But for all the welcome noise on climate leadership in the private sector, there are concerns about how many net-zero targets will be met. A recent poll of 120 sustainability professionals at different companies, conducted by South Pole, found that just one in ten firms with a net-zero vision has an approved science-based targets framework to back it up.
A vocal supporter of European efforts to limit planet-warming emissions, Spain has set out an ambitious plan to install 50 gigawatts (GW) of renewable capacity by 2030.
Reuters Newsagency reports it hopes the process will also create more than 100,000 jobs annually and reduce energy costs for consumers and businesses.
Rolling out renewables “is a crucial lever to reactivate the economy, for a recovery, and we cannot wait,” Energy and Environment Minister Teresa Ribera said.
The auction system being replaced was created in 2013, when the costs of producing energy from renewable sources were higher than the price it could command in the market, Ms Ribera said, but solar energy can now be produced at costs lower than the market price.
“We have to make sure this can be integrated into the system in an orderly fashion, benefiting consumers,” she said.
The new decree should give the sector “confidence to be able to hold the first auction before the end of the year”.
Bids will be submitted sealed, and the winners will receive different prices based on their offers, in what is known as a “pay as bid” system.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s cabinet also approved a plan setting out a route to make Spain’s economy carbon neutral by 2050, using offsets like planting carbon-absorbing trees to balance out climate-changing emissions.
Under this plan, Spain expects to be able to reduce its emissions by 90 per cent from their 1990 levels and offset the remaining 10 per cent.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has officially backed plans to increase the EU’s 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target to 55 per cent from 1990 levels, as she announced a raft of climate priorities in her maiden State of the Union address to European lawmakers this morning.
Addressing the European Parliament in Brussels, von der Leyen emphasised that pushing the EU’s existing carbon reduction target of 40 per cent to a more stretching 55 per cent by 2030 was “ambitious, achievable and beneficial for Europe”, and would enable to bloc to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 in line with the Paris Agreement.
“I recognise that this increase from 40 to 55 is too much for some and not enough for others,” she said in her speech, designed to set out the Commission’s priorities for the year ahead. “But our impact assessment shows that our economy and industry can manage it.”
Lawmakers in European Parliament are set to vote on the long-debated climate proposal – which is believed to be supported by a dozen of the EU’s 27 member states – at a plenary session in early October.
Should the proposals secure approval from MEPs and Member States, von der Leyen said the EU would revise all its climate legislation by next summer to comply with the new 55 per cent emissions reduction target. “We will enhance emissions trading, boost renewable energy, improve energy efficiency, reform energy taxation,” she said. “But the mission of the EU Green Deal involves much more than cutting emissions. That is important, but it is about making systemic modernisation across our economy, society and industry. It’s about building a stronger world to live in.”
Von der Leyen confirmed that 37 per cent of the Commission’s proposed €750bn Covid-19 recovery package – the so-called Next Generation EU fund – would go towards EU Green Deal objectives, and that 30 per cent of the fund would be raised through green bonds.
Hydrogen production, electric charging points, fossil-free steel production and sustainable construction were all areas singled out by von der Leyen as contenders for €750bn package.
She also reiterated the commission’s plans to introduce a carbon border tax on imported goods, envisaged as a means of avoiding ‘carbon leakage’ by discouraging more carbon intensive goods from abroad flooding the EU market. She said the plans would help drive a “level playing field” as the EU attempted to drive a green recovery from the coronavirus.
“Carbon must have its price, because nature cannot pay this price anymore,” she said. “The carbon border adjustment mechanism should motivate foreign producers and EU importers to reduce their emissions while ensuring we level the playing field in a World Trade Organisation-compatible way.”
Meanwhile, von der Leyen said, the bloc would embark on “high ambition coalitions” dedicated to fighting deforestation and supporting nature preservation – including an ongoing push to create protected areas in Antarctica which she dubbed “one of the biggest acts of environmental protection in history”.
The push for higher ambition in the EU’s 2030 climate target is seen as key to encouraging other major economies – including the USA and China – to ramp up their efforts in support of the Paris Agreement ahead of next year’s crucial COP26 UN climate conference hosted by the UK in Glasgow.
As such, several green groups welcomed von der Leyen’s backing for the 55 per cent by 2030 target. Jill Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) Europe urged the EU to enshrine the ‘at least 55 per cent’ target into its Paris Agreement commitment before the close of the year in order to galvanise action in other high emitting economies.
“A stronger commitment from the EU could leverage greater ambition from other countries in urgent need of raising their climate commitments,” she said. “This is especially true in light of the approaching presidential election in the United States, the G20 where Italy is presiding and where greater ambition is most urgent, and for China, soon to be home to the world’s largest carbon market.”
Helen Clarkson, chief executive of green business NGO The Climate Group, echoed Duggan’s call for the EU to swiftly adopt the target. “A stronger European climate target is critical to the EU’s global leadership role and unlocking greater ambition from other countries ahead of next year’s crucial COP26 summit,” she said. “EU member states need to reach an agreement by the end of the year to give businesses and regions the policy and investment certainty they need. This will fire the starting gun on bold, ambitious green economic recovery for the European economy.”
To deliver on the target, Clarkson stressed that the EU must mandate the phase out all petrol and diesel cars by 2035, set a goal of tripling the rate of energy efficiency renovations for existing buildings, and ensure all countries introduce plans to enable direct corporate sourcing of renewable energy.
Elsewhere, however, some green groups raised concerns that the EU Commission’s proposal would also allow emissions-removals through ‘natural solutions’ such as forestry and soil restoration to count towards the 55 per cent target, potentially undermining efforts to decarbonise sectors such as transport and industry.
Moreover, William Todts, executive director at Brussels-based NGO Transport & Environment, warned that plans to include road transport in the EU ETS could undermine the “ambitious” 55 per cent target.
“The EU is finally getting real on the climate crisis,” he said. “The key to tackling transport, Europe’s number one polluter, is carbon dioxide standards that drive car and truck makers to go electric much faster whilst making charging as simple as filling up at gas stations. But the plan to put road transport in the EU carbon market is a mistake. It will undercut the national climate targets whilst jacking up fuel prices for low-income families.”
Indians are the most trusting of climate science, according to a survey on global attitudes to climate change.
By region, almost a fifth of North American adults expressed little or no trust in climate science.
People in South Asia are the most trusting of climate science, according to a new survey.
More than 10,000 people in 30 countries were asked in an SAP and Qualtrics survey, “How much do you trust what scientists say about the environment?”
While more than half of the global respondents trust climate science, those in India were the most trusting. 86% said they trusted scientists ‘a great deal’ or ‘a lot’, followed by Bangladesh (78%) and Pakistan (70%).
India tops the list. Image: SAP/Qualtrics
China and Turkey (both 69%) complete the top 5.
But, at the other end of the spectrum, only 23% of respondents from Russia said they trusted climate scientists ‘a great deal’ or ‘a lot’, with Japan (25%), Ukraine (33%), the US (45%) and France (47%) rounding out those countries that were the most skeptical.
By region, almost a fifth of North American adults expressed little (12%) or no (6%) trust in climate science, compared to South Asia: little trust (4%), no trust (2%).
There is overwhelming evidence of the connection between CO2 emissions and climate change, which is having a profound impact on the world’s oceans and weather patterns.
According to a new study, the oceans in 2019 were 0.075 degrees Celsius above the average for 1981 to 2010 – and the warmest ever recorded.
Changing attitudes
Trust in East Asia and the Pacific dropped 9 percentage points Image: SAP/Qualtrics
Compared to last year, some regions are slightly less trusting of climate science in 2020.
East Asia and the Pacific saw the biggest decline in those trusting scientists ‘a lot’ or ‘a great deal’ – from 59% in 2019, to 50% in 2020.
Image: SAP/Qualtrics
Respondents were also asked for their views on whether they believed global warming exists and what causes it.
Overall, more than two-thirds of people agreed that it’s caused mostly by human activity – with the vast majority of those (78%) in Latin America and the Caribbean expressing this view.
Less that 60% of people shared this view in North America (59%), and East Asia and the Pacific (54%). The latter region had the highest percentage of people – almost four in 10 – who believe global warming is caused mostly by natural patterns in the Earth’s environment.
In North America, a third of people (32%) believe global warming has natural causes, while 9% said they believed global warming didn’t exist. This is compared to just 3% in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the second highest percentage of people believe it’s caused by human activity.
The event will be an opportunity for heads of industry and government to come together with academics and climate campaigners to look for solutions to the climate crisis.
Climate change is a very real and serious threat to society. Extreme weather events such as heatwaves and flooding are becoming more commonplace and severe, leaving communities to deal with often devastating humanitarian and economic costs.
In the past 12 months, global protests have brought millions of young people to the streets to voice their opinions, with the result that both policy-makers and businesses are beginning to sit up and take notice. And a report by a UK environmental non-profit showed that the world’s largest 500 companies could potentially face $1 trillion of financial risks in the short term due to climate change impacts such as higher operating costs, asset write-offs and falls in demand.
This is why, while reading the results of the World Economic Forum’s 2019 Regional Risks for Doing Business report, which is based on a survey of around 13,000 European business leaders, I was surprised to see that climate change did not appear anywhere in the top-10 risks. For me, it is the biggest existential risk for doing business in Europe – and companies need to act now to be prepared.
Unfortunately, we are not on track to meet the Paris Agreement targets. Businesses urgently need to understand where and how their operations and supply chains are vulnerable to the physical risks of climate change. Equally important is that companies assess their transition risks so that their business models not only remain relevant in a lower-carbon future, but they can seize the opportunities that will be presented.
What are the risks identified for Europe by the report?
Cyberattacks are the top threat in Europe, according to the report. The digital world continues to evolve rapidly; more and more devices are connected to the internet and attackers are getting more organized, meaning the threat from external cyberattacks is always increasing.
It’s important that customers trust the companies they do business with not to just provide them with the products and services they need, but to do so in a way that is responsible, ethical and protects their personal information.
What’s not on this list is as important as what is Image: World Economic Forum 2019 Regional Risks for Doing Business report
This means businesses must continuously invest in their cybersecurity capabilities and should allocate significant resources to proposition development and artificial intelligence. Doing so allows firms to better serve their customers and protect them against constantly evolving cyber-risks.
Turning towards macroeconomic and geopolitical risks, Europe is experiencing the twin effects of a natural slowdown in the economic cycle and a political move to the right. Unfortunately, one feeds the other: weak growth tends to result in a shift to the political right and more inward-looking economies. Factors like Brexit and the US-China trade war only serve to increase the chances of a market sell-off and to heighten volatility across the region.
“(Climate change) is the biggest existential risk for doing business in Europe”
In such a scenario, it is likely that central banks will further loosen interest rates and increase asset purchases, driving prices higher, inflating today’s asset bubble further and causing discontent among those who feel savers are being penalized.
Companies with a strong balance sheet, a global/local business model and well-diversified portfolios will be better-placed to navigate these headwinds and be there for their customers when needed. Moving from a reactive to a preventative role will become increasingly important.
Economic, geopolitical and cyber-risks undoubtedly pose an immediate threat to doing business in Europe. However, we all need to acknowledge that climate change is an existential risk to the world – and that includes how we do business. It needs to be at the forefront of decisions, because – if left ignored – the damage will be extensive and irreversible.
Alison Martin, CEO EMEA and Bank Distribution, Zurich Insurance Group
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
